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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990191">A History in Broken Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya'>Arazsya</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hurt/Comfort, Implied Fantasy Racism, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, light injury</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:00:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990191</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward smashes a pot.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>EdTjelvar Week 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A History in Broken Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for EdTjelvar Week 2021 - Day 1, Red</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pot shatters, and Edward Keystone feels it like the flat of an axe. The noise – not <em>only </em>that, the whole fact of the impact, from it slipping off the edge of the chest to where it is now, in powdering pieces across the inlaid floor – sweeps his senses out from under him, strips away years like a storm-sea against a sandbank. Leaves him nothing but a scared child standing over a broken plate, psyche curling in on itself as he waits for shouting and a rough grip on his forearm.</p><p>Somewhere else, where he can’t quite reach, the bird that had startled him flutters up and off into the shadows of the tomb’s high ceiling with a snap of wings. He tries to pull his mind after it, struggle out of the shock and reassure himself that it hadn’t been anything, that he’s in no danger, but it’s not about that anymore.</p><p>Instead, he finds himself crouching, scrabbling at the ground in an effort to sweep the shards into a pile, so that he won’t break them any worse when he tries to move. Somewhere around the resulting scrape of pottery edges on stone, his ears pick up the thud of approaching feet. His shoulders seem to seize, growing too hot underneath his armour, and while he sets his jaw against the pricking of tears in his eyes, he knows it’s not enough.       </p><p>“Edward!”</p><p>Tjelvar’s shout cuts through him, leaves his hunch with more angles, his hands scraping awkwardly over the tiles where he can’t quite seem to aim them right.</p><p>“Edward?”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he mutters, hitching, mostly to the floor. “I– I can fix it, just let me–”</p><p>“Edward.” There’s an agonising crunch of pottery as Tjelvar moves to crouch down in front of him, trying to peer into his face – Edward looks off to the side, acutely aware that he’s crying, unwilling to let it be seen. He can’t imagine that any lines Tjelvar can draw from any of this will form a picture he’ll do anything other than scorn, and he has no desire to add to that.</p><p>“I can fix it,” he says, struggling to keep the words steady.</p><p>“I know.” Tjelvar hesitates, then leans over to rest a hand against Edward’s shoulder. He’s gentle, the pressure of his touch nothing like Edward had been expecting it – he should be <em>angry</em>, because that’s what happens when Edward breaks stuff: someone is always angry, and he gets sent away, and there’s no reason why it should be any different with Tjelvar. He probably won’t be allowed on expeditions anymore. “But… you don’t have to. Come on. Up you get.”   </p><p>Edward lets himself be pulled upright, like he’s nothing more than the waif of a child he feels like. Tjelvar’s there, his frown blurred and swimming out of focus as he steps closer, touching, assessing.</p><p>“Your <em>hands</em>–”</p><p>Oh. Edward flexes them, noticing for the first time that they’re covered in red – he thinks first that maybe the dye on the pot has come off on them, but then he remembers that the pot was black, and the broken edges orange. He feels the pain a moment later, from where he’s cut himself open trying to clear the pieces, as bright and violent as if he’s touched a hot stove, and he shakes his head, unable to accept anything more into the cluttered, trembling space in his head.</p><p>“It’s fine,” he wavers. “I can fix that too, later, if nothing worse happens–”</p><p>“It’s <em>not</em> fine,” Tjelvar interrupts, and there’s a spike in there now, at least – he <em>is</em> angry, then, had just been trying to swallow it. “Come on.”</p><p>He guides Edward out of the chamber, back into the larger space where they’d left their things, then stops, leaning down to rummage around in his pack until he comes out with something that he’s somehow able to unfold into a rickety camping chair.</p><p>“Sit,” he says. “We’ll take care of your hands, all right?”</p><p>He settles Edward down, then sets about emptying some of his canteen into one of their bowls before kneeling in front of him. Edward watches, blinking and unsteady despite the seat being low enough for him to keep both his boots on the floor, as he finds a cloth and dips it into the water. He takes Edward’s hand, grip open enough that he could pull away if he wanted to, and, after a long pause, starts to delicately sponge away the worst of the blood. More flows out almost instantly, dripping between the webbing of Edward’s fingers, and Tjelvar gives a soft hiss in sympathy.</p><p>“You’re certain you don’t want to heal these now?” he asks, level again. He’s not normally so good at controlling his temper, especially where artefacts and people being careless with them are concerned – Edward holds a blink longer than he needs to, thoughts worrying over a shapeless expectation of what might be to come. “Some of them are quite deep.”</p><p>“You wanted to explore the lower levels,” Edward reminds him. “I don’t want to waste my healing in case something else happens. You wouldn’t let me fix your sunburn yesterday.”</p><p>“The lower levels aren’t going anywhere,” Tjelvar says – there might be tautness in his tone again, but Edward can’t be sure, doesn’t think he’d have heard it if he wasn’t looking for it. “And there’s a lot to look at here, so maybe instead we should rest–”  </p><p>“It’s not that bad,” Edward insists. “I can hardly feel it.” It’s not a lie, he tells himself. Paladins don’t lie. And besides, he’s feeling everything else <em>more</em>.</p><p>“Because you’re in <em>shock</em>,” Tjelvar snaps. Then he closes his jaw with a clack of teeth, works it for a moment, and then goes back to washing out the cuts. They sting as the water slides into them, then beads away red. “We need a break, whatever we do later – for <em>my</em> nerves if not for your injuries. When I heard the crash I thought you’d been attacked.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Edward lets his head hang, tries to focus on the chipped leg of the chair instead of on Tjelvar. “It was just a bird.”</p><p>“You have nothing to be sorry for.”</p><p>Edward’s attention jerks back up again to stare at him – he doesn’t seem to notice, just continues about his task, carefully flexing Edward’s hands as if in an effort to make sure that he’s got all of the grit out.</p><p>“So you’re not upset?” The question seeps out unbidden, and Edward closes his mouth too late to bite it back.</p><p>“Of course I’m upset, Eddie,” Tjelvar tells him, but he doesn’t <em>sound</em> it. Not properly, and not even especially like he’s trying to stifle it, as if the last thing he’d said had been the only thing fighting to get out of him. “You got hurt. But you’re already angry enough with yourself. No use in wasting my breath telling you to be more careful when you’ve already told yourself, is there?”   </p><p>“But I <em>broke it</em>,” Edward ventures, all the while struggling to keep it back – he doesn’t want to <em>convince</em> Tjelvar to be angry with him just because he doesn’t understand. “You’re always talking about how important pots are. And I broke it.”</p><p>“Not <em>always</em>,” Tjelvar protests, with a small forced puff of a laugh that neither of them feels. “If people didn’t insist they were <em>boring</em>….”</p><p>They lapse into silence, unable to carry that tone. Tjelvar finally at least seems satisfied with the state of Edward’s cuts, and dries them out with as much as focus as he uses when brushing dust from ancient bones. He leans over to his pack again, wiping off his own hands, and starts to search through it again.</p><p>“Did I ever tell you about my first excavation?” he asks. His eyes flicker back towards Edward, and then firmly away again. The words sound almost shy, as if they’ve never been spoken aloud before like this, and aren’t sure how to be. “It was a little hill fort in Wales. Not exactly my area of interest, but it was my first chance to be involved fieldwork, and I studied <em>so hard</em> to be accepted. The, ah, supervisor didn’t want to bring me.”</p><p>“Why?” Edward scrutinises him, thinks for an instant that he sees a flash of bitterness in Tjelvar’s expression at the question, rushes to correct anything he might have done wrong. “You’re so smart.”</p><p>“Charitably, I would say that everyone there was smart.” Tjelvar finds what he’s looking for – Edward can make out the bright white of gauze and bandages against his fingers – but stays over the bag for longer than he needs to. “Less charitably… I think having an orc, and especially a <em>foreign</em> orc, in their class, was taking some getting used to for a number of the scholars at my university.”</p><p>He settles back onto his heels again, and starts to press the gauze into place over the worst of Edward’s cuts.</p><p>“I was nervous,” he goes on, with more focus on his task than he’d had before, when his gaze had darted up towards Edward’s near-constantly. “And excited. One day I paid more attention to the tray I was carrying than where I was putting my feet, tripped on one of the other undergrads’ spades, and while most of the objects survived, the end snapped off one of the arrowheads. My supervisor was furious with me – no one had ever really spoken to me like that before. But he wasn’t as angry with me as I was. I’d damaged a piece of history, and I’d had one chance to prove myself, and messed it up. But a student from another university – she was studying for her doctorate – took me with her to show me how quickly a conservator could fix the break. She explained why it’s something that we do with modern breaks but not ancient ones, and told me that there was no harm done. She said it wouldn’t be the last time I broke something. That I’d made a mistake, but one that happens to everyone in our field.”</p><p>He starts to wrap the bandages around Edward’s hands, the winding settling into a rhythm with his words, and Edward lets himself be lulled, away from the pain and the shock and the sense of his younger self.</p><p>“You didn’t just decide to throw the pot down because you didn’t realise or didn’t care what it was worth.” Tjelvar starts to tie a knot, neat enough that Edward half-thinks that it’ll be a shame when they get to evening, and he can heal himself and not need them anymore. “You thought you saw something, and in these places you can never be too careful. Edward, I– I would <em>always</em> rather you defended yourself than risked getting hurt to save a thing. No matter how, um, old it is. All right?”</p><p>He finishes the bandages with a flourish, and then brings Edward’s hand to his face, pressing his lips briefly and delicately to the ends of his fingers. Then he seems to notice that he’d just done so, and gives a cough rough enough to make Edward wonder if he’d breathed in the dust from the shattered pot.</p><p>“Um,” he says, a flush rising into his cheeks. “Whenever we would cut our hands, my mother used to – um. Yes. We can fix things. If I had to choose, I’d, ah, rather have to fix a pot than you. So. If you could… look after yourself?”   </p><p>Edward flexes his hands, feels the dressing tight around them.</p><p>“You too,” he says. “Please.”</p><p>“Ah.” Tjelvar gives an awkward smile, and then gently pats at Edward’s knuckles in lieu of shaking on it. “That’s something I’ll have to work on. Deal.” He sets about folding his supplies back into his pack, that pale red blush deepening over his face.</p><p>“Do you want me to finish cleaning up the pieces?” Edward offers. “I can–”</p><p>“No, no.” Tjelvar rushes into it, nearly overbalances over his bag. “No, I know a conservator we can ask in, but it’s best to leave it until we’ve cleared the rest of the tomb in case we break anything else. We should have some…” He squints briefly skywards, though there’s nothing overhead but the high, arching ceiling, and, Edward supposes, somewhere, at least one pigeon. “Lunch. And then I can show you these wall paintings I’ve found, I really think you’ll like them.”</p><p>It’s not lunchtime. Not even at a stretch. Edward opens his mouth, meaning to ask about that, but the question doesn’t come out right.</p><p>“So you’re not going to send me away?”</p><p>“What?” Tjelvar stills, blinks at him over his rucksack. “No. Of course not. I don’t think I’d know how to do this without you anymore.”</p><p>His flush is reaching further across his face than Edward has ever seen it before – he buries himself in their supplies again, presumably searching for rations, and Edward supposes that he should help out. Tjelvar is hardly doing a thorough job of it, hands barely skimming over bags within bags as he apparently tries to empty out everything onto the floor.</p><p>He doesn’t. Just sits, marvelling at the glowing novelty of security, sure that it’ll keep him warm long after the last of the shock has faded.</p>
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